Originally, subaccount billing services in which charges for telephone calls to the customer are sorted and listed under separate subaccount numbers assigned by the customer were offered on a presubscription basis only. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,004, Bauer et al, entitled "Communication Service Method and Apparatus," a method and apparatus were defined for subaccount billing which allowed a subscriber to enter, in real time for each telephone call, a subaccount code entered via dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) digits. The entered subaccount code is used by a telecommunications services billing system to categorize telephone calls in different accounts on a telephone services bill. Bauer et al, '004, permitted subaccount billing service offered on a "per call" or "as needed" basis.
In the prior art, the customer's monthly phone bill is simply a summation of each is individual subaccount. Therefore, the customer pays the bill in full using a single payment method each month. The prior art does not address permitting a customer to establish a billing arrangement by subaccount so that the subaccount can be directly and individually billed to separate, desired payment methods.